Even though this game is notorious for being bad, I actually bought it out of curiousity for another reason. While Slender was based on internet creepypasta, The Hat Man was based on real experiences; shadow people are a real phenomenon and they are often seen wearing a hat. So I sincerely thought, "Wow, this could legitimately be creepy."

What I got, if you haven't guessed, is a big load of shit. I can't say too terribly much because I only could stomach about 15 minutes of play time. But considering that the game can be beaten in 30 minutes, I don't think I missed much.

This "game" is basically walking around collecting pages of a journal. I guess you can read the journal too, if you want to pad out the play time; of the few pages I read, they are nothing special. So you're walking through this hospital down hallways and into empty rooms with nothing interesting in them, occasionally finding a piece of paper. I very quickly got bored because I kept moving because I am almost positive that this game would do something like spawn a dude behind you and it's not that I'm scared of that, it's just fucking annoying. So I was just powerwalking and absolutely nothing happened. One baddy might show at the beginning but as long as you keep moving, it seems that no enemies will spawn (or maybe just not be able to catch you). Occasionally my flashlight would flicker but nothing happened.

Anyway, the "scary" part is the shadow people that will appear and walk (er, hover) toward you. If they reach you, you're dead. You can use a flashlight and shine it at them for a few seconds, causing it to disappear. There's also the Hatman who is apparently invincible because he killed me when I tried to shine my flashlight on him, at which point I promptly told the game to go fuck itself and closed the game.

It's hard to say where this game went wrong because it just did everything wrong. The game play is boring (the novelty of Slender wore off long ago), the baddies look horrible, and having to read the journal just to get any semblance of what the fuck is going on makes me think that I'm reading a fanfic instead of playing a video game.

Let me put it this way: I am someone who bought this game because I was already aware of the depictions of shadow people, I heard it was horrible, still decided to play it because I wanted to see if there was anything of value, and I could not stomach more than 15 minutes / 3 playthrough attempts. I rarely don't finish games. I almost always at least like to play them through to the end even though they might be horrible just so I can fairly say that the entire game is shit, but while the absolute shit that is Dead Bits had shitty gameplay, it at least had gameplay, which is more than can be said for The Hat Man.

That's the end of my review. It's horrible, don't buy it. I'm now going to talk about how the game compares to the actual paranormal phenomenon which somewhat esoteric, so if you are interested in the actual lore behind shadow people you can read on, and if you're not, feel free to stop right here.

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What's really and truly wrong is this: the completely missed the point of shadow people. I want you to see what the enemies in the game look like so you can know exactly what I'm talking about and you won't buy the game out of curiousity about how scary it is.

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On top of the fact that the hooded figure looks a Poe from Zelda on steroids, I want to show you depictions of real shadow people.

Notice a trend? They're in the bedroom, because that's where it's scary. Shadow people are often connected with sleep paralysis where the person wakes up and cannot move only to find a shadowy figure looming over them. They often can only sense them at the peripheral of their vision, partially because they are unable to turn their head due to the paralysis. Some individuals also say that you sense an intense feeling of anger or hatred emanating from the figure and it often lingers even after they've left. When they leave, they are often said to walk straight through a wall. Sometimes they are said to sit on an individual's chest making it hard for them to breath, similar to Old Hag syndrome.

How does this compare to the game's shadow people? "Real" shadow people are menacing. The fear they inspire is amplified by the helplessness of the individual. They don't just appear out of nowhere and rush you, then cover their face with their hands when you shine a light. Hell, Metro 2033 actually did a better job at doing shadow people with its "Dark Ones", and it wasn't even trying! The Hat Man fundamentally misunderstood what makes the Hat Man scary, as did Slender, though at least Slender gave a shit.

The Hat Man didn't make a game about shadow people or the Hat Man, they just used the name to sell a shitty game about ghosts.